|
The Indian Analyst
|
South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA were dug out some forty years ago. A poster still hangs at the place forbidding people to dig earth there more than three feet below the surface. There are also several Gaḍhs and Ḍīhs to the east and south of the village of Bangāon. The plate under discussion was discovered by Pandit Ghughur Jhā sometime in 1950 accidentally n the south-eastern part of the village, close to the Sharari-Ḍīh. It was found buried in the earth with only the top of it visible above the ground. Pandit Ghughur Jhā dug it up and carefully preserved it in his house. The inscription is written on both sides of a single plate measuring 13·4″ in height, 12·2″ in breadth and ·15″ in thickness. On the top side of the plate is soldered the Pāla seal (7″ in length and ·75″ in thickness), shaped like ‘the ace of spades’ and known to have been called Dharmachakramudrā. The legend on the seal runs : Śrī-Vigrahapāladēvaḥ. The copper plate with the bronze seal is in a fairly satisfactory state of preservation and weighs 425 tolas. A portion measuring about an inch in length has, however, broken away from the lower left end of the seal on the obverse of the plate. There are 32 lines of writing on the obverse and 19 lines on the reverse. Considerable space (from 5·4″ to 7″ in length) in the central part of five lines at the top of both sides of the plate is covered by the lower bifurcated part of the seal, causing a break in the continuous writing of those lines. The seal is fixed to the plate apparently with the help of three knobs passing through holes made in the plate.
The characters belong to the East Indian variety of the Northern Alphabet of about the eleventh century A.C., which I am inclined to call the Gauḍīya script. In regard to palaeography, language and orthography the inscription under discussion closely resembles other Pāla inscriptions of the said age, especially the Āmgāchhī[1] and Belwā[2] plates of Vigrahapāla III who also issued the present charter. The letter g is written in two different ways (cf., e.g., samupagat-āº in line 26 and purōga in line 31), one of which is commonly used and resembles the form of ś (cf. samupagat-āśēsha in line 26). The letter t is also written both in the Bengali and in the Dēvanāgarī fashion (cf. ºsutaḥ and itōº in line 50). The superscript r is often a short horizontal stroke put below the top mātrā towards the upper left corner of a consonant (cf. niryāta in line 48) and is sometimes not easily noticed ; but in a few cases it is put above the top mātrā (cf. ºr=yajvanāº in line 49). The superscripts in the conjuncts tt and nt are often undistinguishable (ºāvarttāt in line 25, kīrttitān in line 30, paryanta in line 32, etc.). Medial ē is usually of the Bengali type put to the left of the consonant (cf. ºśēsha in the line 26) ; but in some cases it is put above the top mātrā of the consonant as in Dēvanāgarī (cf. Mēdº in line 31), while in a few cases it is indicated by a short downwards stroke or curve put at the left end of the mātrā (cf. vōdhaº in line 31, likhitō in line 32). Medial i is sometimes without the top curve and is undistinguishable from the Bengali type of medial ē usually found in the record. The anusvāra is written in both the Bengali and Dēvanāgarī fashions (cf. ºrājaṁ and dūtaṁ in line 48). The sign of avagraha has been used in several cases. The engraving is neatly done and there are only a few errors of language and spelling. The letter ni, which is a contraction of nibaddha meaning ‘ registered ’ or ‘ approved ,’ is found both about the beginning and at the end of the first line on the reverse of the plate. This characteristic is also found is some other Pāla grants, including the Āmgāchhī and Belwā plates on which, however, the signs are seen on the obverse. Similar endorsements on the copper-plate grants of the Varmans and Sënas of Bengal show that the two ‘ni’s refer to the approval of the king himself and of one of his high officials.[3] _________________________________________________
[1] Above, Vol. XV, pp. 293 ff. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| > |
|
>
|